15 Apr (NucNet): Bulgaria is looking for strategic investors from China to help expand the country’s nuclear capacity, Temenuzhka Petkova, Bulgaria’s energy minister was quoted by local media as saying.
Ms Petkova told a parliamentary energy committee that Bulgaria is interested it the work being done by Westinghouse on its AP1000 construction projects in China.
She said constructing new nuclear units “remains a priority” for Bulgaria, but the government will only commit to a new build programme if the prospective investor does not ask for state guarantees.
Bulgaria has been looking for options to expand its nuclear energy capacity for some years. Westinghouse has been in negotiations for the construction of an AP1000 nuclear unit at the Kozloduy nuclear site since 2012.
The company signed a shareholder agreement with the previous Bulgarian government in August 2014, but specific financing terms and conditions were never finalised.
In November 2015, Bulgaria’s prime minister Boiko Borisov told local media that the country had invited a Chinese company to invest in the construction of the planned seventh unit at Kozloduy, but this was never officially confirmed.
There are six Russian-built reactors at Kozloduy, four of which have been permanently shut down.
